Possibility to refill small pond with Rachio

Hi,
I have the first gen controller and it is still working great - altough would love to have a reason to upgrade to the newest. I saw the flowmeter and thought of something which bothers me for years and could be easily fixed with a nice rachio feature.

I have a small pond and depending on rain and sunshine it has to be refilled quite sometimes … there is no real pattern for that so I thought having a new sensor for water level which then feeds back to the rachio it could be refilled automatic - I have no issue having to schedule this or not … - but scheduling would be nice - like check at noon and refill. You could even combine it with the flowmeter and max the amount of refilling if someone needs that.

I am not the only one I know having this issue and systems providing this feature neither look nice nor are smart. At current I just have to refill water manually and have to be there until it is refilled. I have one valve as reserve and would love to use it … it is already connected to Rachio but still needs the perfect use case like this would be.

I cannot be the only one with this need and would love to invest in a new sensor or the next Rachio generation.

Cheers,
Walter

@walter88 - two options for consideration:

  1. Use a float switch and an IoT device like the Wemo Maker (may it rest in peace as Belkin discontinued it) in combination with IFTTT to run a zone. There could be a second event to cancel the zone when the zone closed.

  2. Use a float valve (like the old toilet ones) that is closed at normal level and trigger the pond zone every day. If the float is down and the valve open the water will flow into the pond. If the pond is full with the float up and the valve closed nothing will go into the pond.

Really appreciate your lightning fast response. I am well aware of those DIY setups - but I would love to have it professionalized and a nice sensor in the pond - not the old toilet ones and not lots of others which just look plain DIY or not anyhow near to the nice modern sleek design Rachio and the flow sensor has.

Combining it in one ecosystem and not having a second one – would be great - maybe I should have named my topic feature request - which is not “urgent” … maybe this would be a nice feature so it would open new “users” to the Rachio ecosystem.

I would by without a second thought anyway

again, really appreciate your response

As a nerd who just bought a Gen3 (first purchase with Rachio), I’m looking for the same. We’re planning a few small pond areas, birdbath, etc. My wife wouldn’t tolerate anything that looks ugly, so I need to create a natural looking water-level sensor that will link with the Rachio.

While I have never worked with a Raspberry Pi or Arduino, I have the itch to do so. They’re immensely popular, very inexpensive, and plans are readily available for creating “smart” water sensors. I can easily see using those plans to create little devices that will start/stop flow in conjunction with the Rachio and its web service interface. I’m hoping there’s a sub-community of people already interested in this.

Bottom line, @walter88 I don’t think what @DLane suggested was off the mark. I think we’d all like to see something on the shelf to buy to do this, and there probably is somewhere. But without knowing about such a gizmo right now, I’m comfortable that a DIY project like this wouldn’t need to be ugly, costly, or painful. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

HTH

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I should have called the topic - feature request… :sunglasses:

I am also a “nerd” regarding to electronics and automation and I have 2 raspberry´s where I have had various diy projects from firewall to home automation. And - yes - the first suggestion from @DLane was valid if you see my request as something I “just need a solution” on. I went through many but didn´t find anything which looks nice and is easy to implement. I have a first gen rachio because it was to the point as a solution and from a design standpoint fitted super smooth. It was sent to me when it was only available in the US and I had to go for another power adapter (EU).

Until there is a smooth integrated solution in what automation system ever I will stand with the hose and refill my pond manual. I thought the Rachio system would be the perfect fit for that as it is about wifi, timing, water, valves and automation. … and with the flow meter you could also have some extra metric and limit the water to a maximum - just in case the (Rachio-) level sensor is not working. :grinning: